The Wild (20 page)

The days and nights had passed with a strange fluidity while he had been with her. It had seemed to Jack like no more than a couple of months, and yet at the same time the days had felt endless, as though each had been its own eternity. He had read folktales in which wanderers in the woods might emerge and find they had been gone from the world for years. Jack had no sense that the world had changed that much, but the snowfall proved that time had passed more slowly while he'd been with Lesya than it had beyond the reach of her influence.

Still, he did not believe that winter had arrived. Yesterday the wind had been calm and the sun bright and warm, the temperature in the midfifties at least. In the afternoon the temperature had slid precipitously. The previous winter, out in the white silence, he had grown used to temperatures no human should have to endure, and this morning's snowfall was warm in comparison.

No, this was not winter. Jack refused to believe even that October had arrived. Late September, then, and an unseasonably cold day. It wouldn't be unheard of this far north, snow in September. The flakes were fat and moist, the temperature only barely cold enough for the storm, perhaps thirty degrees.

It's beautiful
, Jack thought. The sight of the gentle snow falling over the river as morning lit the horizon quieted his troubled mind. The snow would fall, and winter would come, and in the spring there would be rain that would wash the blood from the rocks, cleansing the horror from this place. He found some peace in that.

Unwilling to take the time to attempt a new fire in the damp snow, Jack ate two pieces of jerky and took a cup of water from the creek. He pulled on two dry, clean pairs of socks he had found in a pack and then retied his boots, grateful for the coat and gloves he had scavenged from the camp. Before falling asleep the night before, he had stowed what food and supplies he could carry in the pack he'd chosen, and now he shook the snow off his bedroll, wrapped it tight, and tied it to the pack. The two Colts hung in gun belts one on each hip, the knives in sheaths; the derringer hid in an inside pocket, the hatchet was in his pack, and he carried the rifle over one shoulder. Over the other he hung the saddlebags containing the slavers' gold.

Weighted down like that, he was tired before he'd walked a hundred yards, but there was nothing he was willing to leave behind. He could not be sure how far from Dawson he might be, or what he would encounter on the trek.

So he trudged in the snow, following the creek to the river as he had planned. Jack had thought that the arrival of morning would warm the air enough to turn the snow to rain or that it would cease completely. Instead, the day grew colder, the wind more fierce; and the snow fell faster.

A horrible suspicion began to develop in Jack's mind: that the storm might not be entirely natural. He traveled the morning on edge, peering into the storm for any sign of threat. Despite the cold, his exertion and the heavy coat made sweat trickle down the small of his back, and his labored breaths plumed their steam with every step. Jack barely noticed such details, and even the growl of hunger in his belly did not distract him from his vigilance. Every tree took on sinister aspect, and where the river passed close by woods, he scanned the trunks and branches for some sign that all was not as it seemed.

Could Lesya come this far from her secret wood? Surely she would be able to do so, but would her magic extend so far from her father's influence? Jack didn't know, and did not care to find out. His chest tightened with dread at the very thought of what would become of him should
she discover him and drag him back to her cabin, or to the grove she had made of cursed lovers, the abominations those men had become. He had been hard at work trying to expunge the image from his mind, but he knew that it would always haunt his dreams.

For hours his concentration was fixed on every shadow, until at last he became utterly certain that indeed some presence observed him on his journey. It watched from the trees, or hid in the whipping snow, or submerged in the frigid, rushing river. He could not decipher its location, but he
felt
it there.

Lesya? Or…and a spark of hope rose within him…the wolf? Other possibilities occurred to him. The Wendigo had been thwarted before, but it still roamed the wilds, and who knew what other spirits and legends prowled the land?

Jack marched on, long past the time he should have paused to rest. Yet doubt lingered in the back of his mind. His senses had been heightened over the course of the year—by the guardian presence of the wolf the prior winter, and the ominous awareness of Leshii in the forest inhabited by his spirit—but did he dare trust them? Did he sense peril in the storm only because it was what he expected to find?

The question dogged him, but did nothing to relieve the tension. Once he stumbled and glanced up quickly at a
line of nearby trees, only to have one of those dark figures
move
, vanishing deeper into the wood.

He bent against the wind and kept trudging, casting wary glances at those trees, but nothing else moved. Soon he had left that wood behind. An open, rocky slope led up and away from the riverbank, and the only shapes in the snow were low bushes and stones that jutted from the ground. The snow clung to the bushes, though the rocks were mostly bare thanks to the buffeting wind.

Sure he felt eyes upon him, Jack spun, seeing nothing other than the whipping snow. The weight of all that he carried dragged on him, and he shifted the saddlebags from one shoulder to the other. He unslung and cocked the rifle. His fingers were cold inside the gloves, but despite the frozen ache in his bones, he would still be able to pull the trigger. What good bullets would do, he had no idea. He had survived this long, and he meant to get home to the people who were waiting for him. He owed it to Shepard, and Eliza would be heartbroken should she never see him again.

“Show yourself!” Jack shouted, but the wind carried the words away.

Again he turned, and this time caught something moving just out of the corner of his eye. It disappeared again into the storm. He held his breath, listening, but heard
only the wind and the river.

He was not alone in the snow. Something paced his every step.

Jack moved closer to the water's edge, glanced around, and came to a halt. Still standing, he closed his eyes and exhaled to let his spirit expand the way Lesya had taught him. He felt for animals at first, and found sleeping owls, skittish hares, furtive wolverines, a single black bear, and in the distance a small herd of caribou.

But the
thing
was there as well, and though he could not touch its spirit the way he could the animals', he sensed it clearly now, and he knew it meant him harm. Lesya might be a madwoman intent upon punishing him for what she considered his betrayal of her, but the wood witch was a lost soul, stricken by loneliness. The thing that pursued him now felt far more sinister and more savage than he believed even mad Lesya could be.

Jack heard snow crunching underfoot. Opening his eyes, he swung the barrel of the rifle in a wide arc, his back to the river. Once again he thought he saw a shape just at the edges of his vision, perhaps closer than before, but it vanished when he tried to look directly at it.

He raised the rifle to his shoulder and fired into the snow, listening to the shot echo through the storm. No other sound returned, no cry of pain or surprise. But he
had not really expected to hit the thing that stalked him. Jack hoped only to make it wary, perhaps keep it away for a while. If luck smiled upon him, he might stumble upon some prospector's cabin or a small Indian settlement on the river.

He ratcheted the bolt to bring another bullet from the magazine. Luck seemed far too much to hope for, so he would rely on the Lee-Metford rifle instead. There were seven more shots in the rifle, and he had other weapons. He would fight to the death—fight death itself, should it come to that—but nothing would keep him from getting home after this extraordinary journey.

Bent against the storm, still he picked up his pace, wary with every step. He searched the storm for further signs of his stalker but saw nothing more. Perhaps the rifle shot had given it pause after all.

Ahead, through the storm, he saw the dark silhouettes of more trees. This stretch of woods seemed to come right to the edge of the river, so he would have to pass almost among the trees to continue southward. Yet he had no other choice. If he waited for the storm to end, his pursuer would overtake him. So Jack kept walking, studying the trees as he approached, watching the branches and the spaces between for the tiniest movement.

The wind shifted, gusting at his back now, propelling
him along, and he felt a moment of relief that the storm had turned in his favor.

And then he caught the scent that the shifting wind had brought, a familiar smell that nearly froze him with terror: the stink of rotten meat.

The Wendigo had found him.

J
ACK
L
ONDON RAN FOR HIS LIFE
, and the Wendigo followed. He did not look back—he had seen it before, at night, and although now the storm might shield his view somewhat, he had no wish to witness this thing touched by daylight. But though he did not look, his other senses were alight, and he knew that the monstrous form now had him in its sights. The shifting of the breeze meant that its stink had already caught up with him; its pounding footsteps crunched snow and splintered plants; and the air itself seemed to taste different. No longer cleansed by the wintry storm, the air Jack breathed was tainted by death.

He could turn and shoot, but he was certain that would do no good. Still, he kept hold of his rifle because he didn't want the thing to think he had given up hope. How many
travelers, explorers, and stampeders must it have witnessed panicking before its onslaught, shedding bags and weapons left and right as they ran blindly toward their deaths? He had no way of knowing and no wish to find out. And if he were to die here today, he would do so with dignity.

I've got to make the trees
, he thought, a plan fluttering at his mind.

Whatever fate Lesya had intended for him, he had much to thank her for, not least the food he had been eating since she had found him. If it hadn't been for that, he would have collapsed or even died by now, and terrified though he was, deep down a small part of Jack reveled in the strength he felt, the speed he ran. He wondered if all victims being chased down by predators felt this way, just for a moment.

Jack reached the cover of the trees and immediately changed direction. He sensed outward and felt a fox cowering in fear a hundred steps away, and closer by lay a regular trail trodden by the fox and its family to and from the river. He steered himself along this trail, summoning his fledgling abilities and uttering a foxlike bark as he went. The land sloped up from the river here, and his pace slowed…and then from behind he heard the ragged snap of trees and branches splintering as the Wendigo came.

It could have taken me at any time
, he thought, switching direction quickly, leaping over the hole in which he
knew the fox family cowered.
It's been stalking me through the storm, and it could have closed in and ripped me apart
.

He leaped a gully and then darted to the left, away from the fox trail. He kept the musky warmth of the fox in his mind as he ran, and the growls rumbling in his throat were not his own. In the pressures of pursuit, his plan had no concrete form: He simply sought to confuse the Wendigo. If he could do that, perhaps the chance for escape would present itself.

Jack darted right and left again, trying to keep low to the ground. He dodged a large fallen tree, rejecting the temptation to hide behind it. Even if he could camouflage himself completely, he knew that the monster would find him. He might be able to smother himself with leaves or the imagined attributes of a fox, but his talents were still young, and he could never hide the true smell of his blood or the sound of his human pulse.

He paused, concentrating to shift his attention from fox to rabbit, and then started running again.
Can it smell or know those things?
he thought.
Does it even acknowledge them?
From all he knew of the Wendigo, it sought human flesh and none other. Animals might be a distraction to it at best. But he had to try.

At the next fallen tree, Jack paused and looked behind him for the first time.

The Wendigo was raging up the slope. It came between the trees, thrashing and whipping its great limbs, and for an instant it looked like a living tree itself. Its size certainly matched, and each time it lifted a leg to step forward, a sharp tearing sound reverberated through the woods, like roots snapping as their owner hauled itself from the ground. The air around it seemed splashed with blood—it misted in the atmosphere, sprayed the boles of surrounding trees—and Jack realized the sound came from wounds constantly opening across the thing's torso.

He sought its face, amazed at its pain, but such a sight was lost among daytime shadows.

It roared. Perhaps it saw or sensed him watching, and after a beat it paused, taking in great bellowing breaths as it sniffed him out. Branches ruptured as it turned its head left and right, leaves fell, and then Jack felt its full attention fixed upon him.

He tried to breathe but could not. And as he turned and started running again, he realized his terrible mistake:
I can never outrun this thing!

Soon, he knew, he would have to stop and fight.

But first he needed to marshal his thoughts, and for that he needed a place to hide away.

He explored out and ahead of him as he ran, trying also to use Lesya's lessons and the small gift of magic she had
placed within him to summon the traits of wild animals. Jack realized just how little he knew about the strange talents she had cultivated in him because, in the terror of his flight, there was no way to truly assess just how effective they were. There would be no second chances today.

Clasping his rifle, the weight of gold hauling him down, he struggled on. Soon he sensed a cave somewhere ahead of him, and the fading smell of what had once inhabited it. He moved quickly in that direction, glancing around nervously in case its former inhabitant was choosing that moment to return. But such fears were foolish, and he almost laughed out loud. He glanced around at the pursuing Wendigo—saw only trees swaying down the slope, its bulk blurred through the forest—and then he went for the cave.

The remains of the black bear's den were still there, and Jack quickly rolled among the detritus. He imagined himself as the bear, growling and grumbling low in his throat, hands pawing at the ground, fur bristling in cautious anger at what approached. And as he heard the Wendigo come closer, Jack grew still.

It paused somewhere beyond the cave.

Jack breathed heavily and throatily, like a bear, trying not to let his fear taint that sound.
It won't believe this for a heartbeat
, he thought, his confidence failing just as the monster's legs stepped into view.

The cave mouth was low and festooned with hanging plants. But even if they had not been there, Jack would not have been able to see the thing's upper body and head. It was so tall, its legs were like bleeding tree trunks, thin, knotted, punctured here and there by deep wounds. Its feet were like irregular slabs of meat, with splintered bones protruding where Jack approximated its toes to be. Blood and other fluids flowed from sores and wounds, and there were strange, spiky growths at several points up and down its legs. They might have been hairs, but they were as thick as Jack's fingers.

He realized that he was holding his breath, and with realization came a gasp. The Wendigo grunted, legs twisting as it turned its upper body somewhere above Jack's line of sight.
It heard me
, he thought, and suddenly the cave mouth became very distant and precious. It was the only splash of light he could see in his ever-darkening world, and it was also the place through which death would visit. So he squeezed his eyes closed again, casting himself back into Lesya's woodland clearing, and it was her beautiful face he saw before him as he concentrated on gathering the smells and sounds of a black bear around him. She smiled and nodded her approval, and when Jack said something back to her, it came out as a growl.

He opened his eyes. The Wendigo seemed frozen
beyond the bear cave, and he imagined its head tilted to one side as it listened for another sound. So Jack growled again, a low, throaty sound that also held a trace of fear. He imagined that any bear seeing this thing would be scared.

The Wendigo roared—a sound filled with pain and wretchedness—and then stalked away.

Jack breathed a sigh of relief and crawled quickly to the cave's mouth.
There's no way I'll lose it for long
, he thought.
It will soon sense the deception, it'll smell it out, and then when it comes back for me, I'll have lost the element of surprise
. What he was about to do felt foolish and perhaps would doom him, but then he was also tired of running. Eventually the thing would chase him down and fall upon him, and he would die knowing exhaustion and fear, and nothing else. At least this way, he would begin the fight with the upper hand.

He crawled from the cave mouth and stood slowly, leaving the saddlebags at his feet for now. The Wendigo was uphill from the cave, grabbing at tree trunks to haul itself higher. Its head was a monstrous parody of a human head, and for a beat Jack thought it was made of many bodies rolled and twisted together. He blinked quickly, trying to dispel that idea, but it would not leave him.

Squatting, aiming the rifle, he calmed his breathing and rested the sights on the back of that massive head.

When the Wendigo next paused to reach out for
another tree, Jack pulled the trigger.

The report was staggeringly loud, bringing home to Jack just how quiet the woods had become. He and the Wendigo were being watched, in silence, by the forest creatures. Perhaps it was a scene they had seen many times before as this monstrous, cursed thing pursued a flesh-and-blood human across the landscape, and in that case the animals knew what the likely outcome would be. For tales of the Wendigo to be so prevalent,
some
of its victims must have survived. But it was still regarded as myth and legend…so the number of survivors must be few.

Jack was certain that the bullet struck home, but its only effect was to reveal his position to the Wendigo. The huge thing belied its size as it spun around and came at Jack. No pause, no moment to reflect or to pin the human on its senses…it charged downhill like an avalanche of flesh and bone, and the greatest fight of Jack's life had begun.

What made me think I could defeat this thing?
he thought as he dropped the rifle and stood his ground. But really he knew. It had less to do with the deceptions and imitations that Lesya had taught him, and more to do with the sense of togetherness he felt with the wilderness, and had been feeling more and more since the ship had first docked at Dyea. There was a rightness to this, and Jack was long past denying whatever destinies he had set in play by
embarking upon this journey.

He had not conquered the wild, nor tamed it. He had become a part of it, and it a part of him.

Jack roared. There was no particular animal sound contained in his voice, and neither was it distinctly human. It was a cry of the wild, and he put every ounce of the energy he had left into uttering his fury and rage. It shivered through his whole body as he aimed his scream at the sky; his hair stood on end, his skin prickled, and his bones seemed to vibrate in time with the screech.

The Wendigo slowed from a run to a walk, but still it came. Its misshapen head tilted to one side, and those mad eyes regarded Jack like a fellow madman. And who was he to argue? He screamed again, this time directly at the monster. And when it seemed to pause in its tracks for a beat, Jack accompanied the scream with a step forward.

The Wendigo stepped back. It uttered a surprised cough, then crouched down and stretched its head forward. It sniffed, great moist nostrils opening in its head. Jack fisted his hands by his side. His heart was thrumming, blood pumping so fast through his body that he felt delirious in this unseasonable storm.

The Wendigo's eyes betrayed their true madness then. It screeched at the smell of Jack's flesh and blood, slavering, and its hands whipped forward, knocking branches
from the trees around it as it reached for him. The arms were longer than he had guessed, its fingers even longer, and though Jack fell back, he still felt the cool kiss of its fingertips abrading his face. Blood dripped down over his lips and mouth.

He darted out his tongue, tasted his own blood, and thought,
This is what it wants.

The Wendigo came for him, and Jack pulled his knife from his belt. He ducked its swinging arm, leaped, hacked at its foot, stepped back again as it lifted one leg and stamped down. It would happily crush him before eating him; his blood would be just as hot.

He darted around behind it, ducking something that could have been a branch or tail, leaning in toward the monster, sweeping left to right with the blade and feeling a warm pulse of blood as the metal parted skin. The Wendigo seemed hardly to notice, such were the wounds and sores already leaking across its body, and it reached down for Jack.

He ran between its braced legs and turned sharply to the right, tripping on a tree root concealed beneath the snow. Now it would tear him apart slowly before upending his halves and emptying his insides into its mouth. He could picture it in his head as he scrambled away, lunging past a tree, staying just out of reach.

The Wendigo came for him, and Jack pulled his knife from his belt.

The stench of the Wendigo was horrendous: rotting meat, death, decay, filth, rancid fluids streaking its hide. And the sounds it made were just as repulsive: the growls as it sought him, yes, but also deep, distant grumbles from its stomach, the reverberations of an eternal hunger that could never be sated. Somewhere in there, the bones of Jack's friends and enemies alike ground together.